Lesley Smitheringale Fine Art

Featured Artist: Jacqueline Pytyck

Jacqueline Pytyck is an illustrator, a designer and an OCAD graduate, with an extensive passion for life and image-making. Her whimsical gallery contains an array of optical illusions, and conceptual pieces that focus primarily upon human nature and social relationships. Artistic influences include Japanese woodblock printing, Inuit art, Ukrainian textiles, and the surrealist work of Zdzislaw Beksinski. Her greatest inspiration stems from her friends and family.

Clockwise: Wandering Eye, Two Faced, Hot Head, Broken Heart

Fishy

Jump Illustration Website

Posted in Featured Artist
By Lesley Smitheringale

Featured Artist: Lars Henkel

Lars Henkel was born 1973 in Italy. He studied at the KHM, Academy for Media in Cologne, Germany and works now as an illustrator. He does a lot of work for magazines and publishers, but focuses also very much on his own artworks. Together with Anja Struck and Mario Wagner he belongs to the art collective Reflektorium.

Unfortunately there’s hardly any information on this artist and his website is in German but from what I can see, Lars has worked in illustration, music CD designs, short movies, collage, snowboard designs and comic strips to name a few. His work has a surreal feel and he uses a sort of x-ray vision in many of his works which reminds me of Aboriginal art.

Featured Artist: J.Alex Stamos

I discovered this young artist by chance and immediately liked his work. He offers no information about himself. He has a bog here called The Technological Mammal and a website here.

l to r: Sketchbook piece and Into the Forest (Illustration for Hansel & Gretel)

l to r: Heaven & Threatened Wetlands

This illustration was created for the cover of Lawrence.com. The story is about how the city of Lawrence plans on building a highway through the Baker Wetlands thus destroying the ecosystem and also some sacred Native American sites. There are several environmental and historical groups that are protesting the build, however the city seems very determined to see this thing built. I’ve been focusing more on keeping the message of my images as clear and simple as possible. I tried with this one to make a final image that could work as both a large, full color illustration, but also be easily reduced into a black and white spot. It helps me to think in these terms so that I keep things economical and don’t get carried away with unnecessary details.

This young artist’s style reminds me of Arthur Rackham illustrations.